Thursday, January 31, 2013

The vast majority of us have never seen an abortion – but we can gain wisdom from those who have. Abortion is a terrible, violent procedure that kills a baby. No amount of sugar-coating can banish that reality. Those of us in the pro-life movement must continue on, knowing we are fighting a battle against the most important human rights injustice of our time.

The doctor continued talking in his disinterested monotone, and I watched as the contents of the woman’s womb came through a suctioning device and into a stainless-steel pail sitting at his feet. I stepped back and wiped the perspiration from my brow. “This is kind of gruesome,” I said. “Was there some special reason she didn’t want to have her baby?”

“She wanted an abortion,” the nurse replied, “and we’re required by law to do what she wants.”

The doctor had been listening to our conversation. As he stood up, he said, “At this point in the pregnancy, the products of conception aren’t much.” I knew the emphasis on “products of conception” was for my benefit.

Is that what you have in that pail? I thought. Does that make it easier for you? I did not have the courage to put into words what I was thinking. I’ve always regretted that.

I stepped forward and peered into the pail. This time I broke out in a cold sweat. Dear Jesus! I thought. I just saw someone murdered! And I just stood and watched! Why did I come down here? How will I ever put this out of my mind?

“Are you OK?” the voice of the nurse brought me back.

“I’m sorry,” I smiled weakly. “I just never realized what it was like.

Do you assist with these all the time?”

“More than I care to admit,” the nurse said. “Actually, I can handle one, but when they start to come back for the second or third time, it really gets to me.”

As I left the operating room, I shook my head in an attempt to get the horrible vision out of my head. I couldn’t. It was there; it would always be there: a little hand…a little rib cage.

Don't let us ever be taken in by the terms "product of conception" or "tissue"; that is a living human person, a very tiny one, that is being killed legally. In every single abortion, someone dies.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Last night, I met with a group of people to pray for an end to abortion. This is something that we try to do monthly during the months when we are not taking part in the 40 Days vigil on the sidewalk. We want to keep the issue at the top of our list of priorities and meeting to pray together strengthens us as Christian brothers and sisters.

Last night, I was overwhelmed by a sense of the division between Catholics and non-Catholics. I wanted to say something, but knew that the time and place was not right.

One man opened up the prayer hour by praying that the Protestant churches would come on board with this issue; he said that the Catholics had been carrying it alone for too long, and that it is something all Christians should be united about.

I have no problem with that; it is not hard to notice that 80% of vigil participants are Catholics.

What struck me dumb last night was the very clear realisation that the issue of contraception is the problem. It is not as if I haven't read Humanae Vitae, or numerous other articles linking contraception and abortion. I have read my share for sure. But it was suddenly astoundingly clear that if you separate sex from the making of a baby (which contraception does), then you have the problem right away. Babies should only be planned and wanted. A baby that isn't planned is seen as a problem. If the couple were not using any birth control, then perhaps they will accept that this is what happens. But if birth control has been used and has failed, then somehow that baby shouldn't be there. It isn't fair.

And the door opens to rationalizing why it is okay to terminate a pregnancy that wasn't supposed to happen.

I love my Protestant brothers and sisters, and sometimes their zeal and fervour puts my Catholic friends and acquaintances to shame. But I felt so deeply that they just don't see this connection and that is to their detriment. It is only the Catholic Church that speaks out about artificial contraception (I am guessing that the Orthodox church and very religious Jews do as well but I am not that familiar with them). The Protestant churches, one by one, accepted artificial contraception. Beginning with the Anglicans at the Lambeth Conference in 1930, contraception was accepted where it had once been condemned.

So when someone asked "why is it that our Protestant brethren don't join us in this vigil?", I kept my lips sealed. That was not the time to bring dissension into the group; but, when the opportunity arises, I will have to say something. Because it has become so bleedingly obvious to me, that if you contracept, then you will need abortion as your back up, sooner or later. As Father Frank Pavone says, they are fruits of the same "evil" tree.

And I know that the majority of Catholics also use artificial contraception; but it is a case of the means does not justify the ends. Just because the people don't obey what they are told, does not make the rule wrong. It simply means the people are disobedient, for whatever reason. Some are ignorant, others are wilfully disobedient, most are blissfully unaware of how contraception changes the relationship between a man and a woman. They are no longer open to life, as God would have them be. I am not saying that married couples have to have many children (there are very reliable methods for figuring out how to avoid conception if the couple are not ready for a baby), but God never intended sex to be for pleasure only. If He did, surely He could have made it different from the act that creates a child? But the act of union between husband and wife, and the act that creates new life, are one and the same. And there is a reason for that. When we break that connection, as contracepting does, then we don't allow God into our lives as He wishes to be.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Ever wonder why you don't hear much about the threat of Islam on Fox News?

No, you probably didn't, but if you are a Fox News fan, then pay attention.

You won't hear either Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity interview someone who is paying attention to the stealth Jihad, nor will they have on as guest a person like Pam Geller. Who is Pam Geller? An extremely smart Jewish American who is watching carefully as Islam permeates American society and is, for the most part, uncontested.

Just last week, I mentioned to my husband that Fox never has Mark Steyn on as a guest. Which is odd, since Mark Steyn is the #1 blogger in the US on political affairs. So why doesn't Fox have Mark on the show? Because he is too brutally honest when he talks about the Islamization of America.

And the answer is:

What with Al Gore selling Current TV to Al-Jazeera, would this be a bad time to mention that Fox News is partially Saudi owned?
Kathy Shaidle on www.pjmedia.com

This makes me rather proud of Sun News here in Canada. Ezra Levant, Michael Coren, and Brian Lilley are unafraid to tackle all issues in the political arena, from freedom of speech, to the pseudo-hunger strike of Chief Teresa Spence, to Islam. They talk about sex-selection abortion, they have on Linda Gibbons - a woman who has spent half of the past 20 years in jail for protesting peacefully outside an abortion clinic, they expose the gay agenda of the Ontario education administration.

Ezra has on his show, every week, a former member of the Israeli army who translates what is being said on the Arab media. Michael Coren has on his show, every week, Robert Spence, a man who has his pulse on the middle east. And he has Pamela Geller on the show, a woman who fought NYC to get her ads in the subways, ads that decried any religion that used violence to achieve its ends. Brian Lilley dares to expose the hand-outs to the state television CBC, and the way the media distorts the news to suit a liberal agenda.

Kathy Shaidle said that Americans are actually tuning into Sun News to get unbiased commentary, that they cannot obtain in the US, even with Fox News.

So, if you don't get Sun News yet, then contact your cable network and sign up for it. At the moment, they are fighting to get a license from the CRTC so that they can be carried by all the cable networks, something they desperately need in order to stay afloat. Perhaps you think you have enough television already, but take a look at Sun and see what you are missing. I will never rely on CBC or Global for the news anymore; they simply cannot be trusted.

And while I love the Bill O'Reilly show and Sean Hannity, I won't switch to them from Michael Coren who has the guts to really talk about the biggest threat to the western world - Islamic jihad.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Many feminists insist that abortion is necessary for women to participate freely and equally in society. Anyone who disagrees, they argue, has merely adopted patriarchal standards and accepted women’s ‘place’ in society. Yet this demonstrates how deeply the roots of sexism run in our culture. Its premise is a sexist one - that women are inferior to men and in order to be equal, we have to change our biology to become like men - wombless and unpregnant at will. What other oppressed group in history has had to undergo surgery in order to be equal? --
- Marilyn Dickstien Kopp

There are two sides to the pro choice movement. The first side is convinced that fetuses aren't really humans/people. The second side is convinced that it's OK to kill humans/people. The former side is factually incorrect, and the latter side is morally incorrect.
- Chris, 17 year old at the March for Life, Washington, DC

Saturday, January 26, 2013

An interesting and insightful article about the silence on the abortion debate in Canada. Certainly the topic of abortion in Canada is a no-go issue, unlike our neighbour to the south, where people from all walks of life speak up loudly about the plunder of the unborn. A malaise of political correctness hangs over our country, thank God for those voices that dare to be heard.

He had to threaten a lawsuit to do it, but 18-year-old student Oliver Capko was finally able to convince the Student Association at Kwantlen Universtiy in Greater Vancouver to grant club status to Protectores Vitae, a pro-life group he had formed. He learned of the student association’s about-face in early December of last year. Student leaders had denied his original request because his club contravened their pro-choice policy, and it was only when Capko retained constitutional lawyer John Carpay that they thought better of their heavy-handedness.

Universities’ willingness to impose harsh measures and student councils’ consistent animus against pro-life clubs highlight the unique vilification of this small but committed group of students. They advocate nothing violent or illegal or immoral; they merely speak about what has been deemed unspeakable in Canadian society.

A tacit agreement has made abortion a political no-go area in this once-conservative country. The present Conservative government under Stephen Harper — though continually accused by detractors of harboring a “hidden agenda” (supposedly dedicated to returning women barefoot and pregnant to the kitchens of the nation) — has shown itself averse to addressing the matter, leaving Canada the only country in the Western world without any abortion law. It has been that way since 1988, when the Supreme Court struck down the existing law, and no government since then has been able to draft a new one. Although statistics on late-term abortions are very difficult — in some cases impossible — to attain in Canada, it is acknowledged that a significant number occur after 21 weeks gestation, the point at which the Canadian Medical Association declares the fetus viable outside the womb.

What is one to make of the marked determination, not only on the part of pro-abortion advocates but also on the part of all but a few stalwart pro-life supporters, to accept a de facto ban on abortion debate? Certainly there is less and less place for pro-life advocacy on either side of the political spectrum.
Under different circumstances, the political Left in Canada might have been a natural home for the pro-life movement, especially that part of the Left with social gospel underpinnings. The leftist New Democratic Party, after all, has always drawn a significant number of its leading members from the mainline churches. With an emphasis on group rights, state-supported compassion, and special compensations for the weak, the progressive movement is at least theoretically a good fit for a principled commitment to the most vulnerable of human beings. The Left’s championing of women’s sexual freedom and self-determination, however, seems to have made protection of unborn children a political non-starter.

The conservative side of politics used to uphold the sanctity of life, with religious and social conservatives favoring humane limitations on the abortion license. But in the last twenty years or more, the emphasis in the modern conservative movement has been on freedom: free market competition, freedom from state interference in personal affairs, and freedom to express unpopular ideas. In that context, abortion law looks less like the protection of life than like the state meddling in private conduct, and therefore like an unjustifiable impingement on freedom of conscience. Avowedly pro-life politicians frequently declare their unwillingness to limit others’ “choice,” and both the libertarian wing of the political right and secular fiscal conservatives seem to find the pro-life position irrelevant or harmful.

For these reasons, legal restrictions on abortion are now nearly impossible to contemplate in Canada, a fact that pro-lifers, through their silence, implicitly acknowledge. In a prosperous, sexually liberated culture such as ours, it seems we can no longer imagine a law restraining a woman’s unfettered right to abortion: everything we have become — career-oriented, pleasure-seeking, committed to ideals of self-fulfillment and free choice — militates against it. And yet, even abortion’s staunchest defenders must recognize at some level that a culture that kills its unborn children in such numbers (reportedly about 30 abortions for every 100 live births) and with such indifference is an unhealthy one, both demographically and spiritually. The pro-choice determination to keep pro-lifers silent betrays that knowledge.

The Oliver Capkos of the country reveal a contradiction at the heart of our professed values — defense of the weak, the pursuit of justice, and the right to life — that few Canadians have the honesty or courage to confront.

Estimates range around the half million mark for this year's March for Life in Washington, DC. You would think that the largest demonstration in the western world would get some media coverage, but aside from Fox News and an article in the Huffington Post, there is little mention of this gigantic mass of people.

They can try to ignore it all they want, but the issue of abortion and the cry to defend life is not going to go away. As Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News last evening, the way abortion was decided in the US, by Supreme Court decree, was the worst possible way to decide an issue of this import. He said that this should have been left to each state and to democratic principles, not to the decision of judges. And because of the legalization of abortion in such a manner, the fight will continue. People will not be treated this way, and the pro-life issue shows this most clearly.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

They may only be 1% of the total number of abortions, but that amounts to 40 babies every single day. So they are each averaging 10 late term abortions daily.

Four doctors in the US do late term abortions, and they are featured in a documentary entitled After Tiller. Tiller was an abortionist who was gunned down in 2009 as he was going into church one Sunday morning.

Note the age of the four doctors; not one is young. In fact, it is very difficult to get young doctors to do abortions today. They just don't want to be involved with the gruesome procedure. As this year's March for Life is going to show, the pro-life movement is full of young people; today's generation of young people are rejecting abortion as they come to realise that abortion has decimated their generation by one-third.

I had completely forgotten, until this morning, that when it was all over I made myself look at that thing again. As the staff member held my arm and steadied me out of the room I reached over and yanked the sheet off again. I made myself look at that blood filled glass canister. Somewhere in their was my child and he/she deserved to have me be haunted with the memory of what I had done and where I had left him/her. I remembered thinking to myself, “Don’t you ever forget what you’ve done. You don’t deserve to forget”.

But I did forget. Not right away. I was suicidal for months after, drinking and consuming every pill I could find. I took the entire contents of mine and my roommate’s medicine cabinet one night. All I did was sleep for two days straight and no one checked on me. I think it was during that time that I eventually managed to bury those memories.

For whatever reason they chose today to pop back up. But instead of feeling hopelessly lost in that old dark abyss something different overcame me. Not a peace. No. I don’t think that I will ever know true peace. It was a comforting feeling. Like a hundred people praying for me right at that exact moment. Then I checked my email and I realized that they were. Today marks the beginning of the 9 Days of Prayer, Penance and Pilgrimage sponsored by USCCB.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

A few years ago, when a new "pro-life" group formed in my parish, there was a debate over what we should call ourselves. Almost everyone in the group agreed that we must not use the word abortion in any of our communications, too negative. One person said we must be "pro-life" because we have to be seen as positive, not as nay-sayers. It didn't sit well with me, and Jonathon van Maren does a great job explaining why that is so.

For starters, the term “pro-life” is a bit fluffy. It doesn’t do a very good job of conveying opposition to a horrifying medical procedure that completely shreds a tiny human being. We’re not just pro-alive-and-healthy-fetuses, we’re also very specifically anti-suctioning-them-to-death.

The specificity of the moniker “anti-abortion” is helpful in a lot of ways. People often want to be seen as supporting something, not opposing something—but I’ve discovered that if the conversation we’re having is focusing on abortion specifically, it’s generally not a hard argument to win. The vast majority of people have no idea (either intentionally or by default) how grotesque abortion actually is, so when they are confronted with that reality, rhetoric like “choice” or “reproductive health” falls flat very quickly.

The pro-choice movement and their supporters in the media have long insisted on referring to us as anti-abortion. I say we should give them the argument they want. Yes, we are anti-abortion, and for very good reasons too. Imagine an exchange on a TV station that would go something like this:

Guest: Well, I’m strongly pro-life…

Host: You mean anti-abortion.

Guest: Well, yes. I think that using a suction machine or forceps to dismember a living human being in the womb is something I should oppose. Do you?

Host: Uhhhhh….

Pro-lifers should embrace the title: Yes, I’m anti-abortion, and I’ll tell you why. That, I think, is an argument we will win.

Rewatch the second video in the post below, the one that shows the reaction of marchers at last year's March for Life to the graphic images of abortion shown by Created Equal. A couple of people turned away, obviously upset with the images. But the majority of the young people who saw the images looked stunned. They were silent, just staring at the photos of aborted fetuses. It really is true that most people do not know the violent reality of abortion; and, when they do see it, the instinctive reaction is shock and disbelief - that we can do such a thing.

And just for the record, our "pro-life" group no longer exists except in name only in the parish directory. It had no guts to it.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Thursday, January 17, 2013

A group called Created Equal will be looping the above video on their giant jumbotron at the March for Life in Washington next week. Reaction to last year's presence of the group is kind of revealing. It seems that many marchers are not really aware of the violent reality of abortion, as shown in this next video.

As they say, if the victims of abortion can't be represented at the March for Life, where can they be represented?

And if the pictures are too horrible for people to see, isn't abortion too horrible for us to allow?

Myself, I think the woman who is weeping and praying has the appropriate response.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

But not as you might expect. Father John Hollowel outlines what the American bishops are proposing that Catholics do to fight off the attack that is now happening upon the Church.

Five part plan:
Offer adoration at every Catholic church on the last Sunday of the month

Enter into rosary and daily prayer with our families

Participate in a fortnight for freedom this summer

Include special intentions at our Masses every Sunday

Fast every Friday this year, not just to abstain from meat but enter into the fast that we do on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

The Church has always responded to attack in this way: by encouraging its members to become saints. Yes, it appears confrontational, but we have always been instructed to do battle against evil. Perhaps it is just becoming more apparent that we are actually in a battle between good and evil.

To those who would seek to destroy the Catholic Church, Father Hollowel says:

Be warned: you take your place in a long line of people throughout the history of the world, many other lords of the world, many other people who have sought to do exactly what you now seek to do, and their bodies lie now in earthen graves, while the Ark of the Church continues to sail on toward eternity, that eternity of heaven where every tear will be wiped away and every joy will be finally manifested and made whole.

St Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil, May God rebuke him we humbly pray. May He cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

I really really get upset when people don't spell things right. And in the blog world, it may not be deemed important but it says to me that the author can't be bothered with details. So I wonder how can their grander vision be trusted?

This may sound picky, but I do think that if we can't be trusted with little things, we can't be trusted with bigger ones. Kind of sloppy. Language is important, it is our tool for communication and it needs to be used properly. Spell check is only a click away.

What happened to good old suicide? If people can't bear to live, why don't they just off themselves, rather than involving others and thereby seeking validation for their death?

Cowardly on two counts: they can't face life being blind, and they can't commit their own suicide - they have to get someone else to end their lives, which means now someone else is complicit in their death. Take full responsibility for this; surely you can commit suicide successfully without getting someone else to do it for you! It is truly pathetic that someone, who doesn't want to live, can't bring themselves to commit their own suicide.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

40 years ago,
abortion-rights activists won an epic victory with Roe v Wade
They've been losing ever since

From its early beginnings, feminism was a young women’s movement. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Charlotte Lozier and so many others began their suffragist work in their 20s. These women — the original feminists — understood that the rights of women cannot be built on the broken backs of unborn children. Anthony called abortion “child murder.” Paul, author of the original 1923 Equal Rights Amendment, said that “abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”

So the pro-life movement hasn’t changed the meaning of feminism, as has been suggested. It was the neo-feminists of the 1960s and ’70s who asked women to prize abortion as the pathway to equality.
LifeNews

Perhaps it won't be that long before we are ashamed but willing to admit our guilt for the genocide of the past 40 years.